Harinath Rao Nagulavancha

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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“I
was very happy. I said &#39;namaskaar&#39;. He [the President] greeted me and
said, &#39;Welcome to Rashtrapati Bhavan’,” says Kamala Pujhari, recalling her visit
to New Delhi in March this year to receive the Padma Shri.

The award was given in recognition of
Kamalaji’s work on seed conservation (see the cover photo on top). For her, it’s a journey that began over
four decades ago when, after getting married, she moved to Patraput hamlet in Odisha’s Koraput district. At that time, she
recalls, the villagers were cultivating around 15 indigenous varieties of paddy,
and kalajira,
gothia, haladichudi, umuriachudi, machhakanta, bhudei, dodikaburi and others were in abundance.

“Every
family cultivated two or three types of paddy, different from each other,” she
says. “At the end of the harvesting season, people exchanged seeds and grains.
That way, the village had plenty of varieties.” 

But around 25 years
ago, the paddy varieties started dropping. “I noticed
a decline in the cultivation of landraces [indigenous varieties]. I felt there
was a need to protect them,&quot; says Kamalaji, who is in her late 60s and
from the Bhumia Adivasi community.


The varieties reduced, Kamalaji says, because
as joint families divided, smaller family units increasingly started using
higher-yielding hybrids. But the shift was also promoted by policy. &quot;All
varieties are not procured at the mandi [the government procurement centre] as
they do not meet their [‘fair average qualities’] standard,” says Kamalaji’s
son Tankadhar Pujhari. “Sometimes,
varieties like machhakanta,
which are of fine quality,  can be sold
at the mandi. But mostly, we cultivate machhakanta and haladichudi for household
consumption, and &#39;sarkari dhan 1010’ [a new hybrid variety] for selling in
the mandi.&quot;

When she saw the landraces disappearing, Kamalaji
began scanning villages within a 20-kilometre
radius from Patraput, usually on foot, to collect seeds. “The routes were harsh, there was plenty of wilderness,” she
recalls. Sometimes, she had to stay back in the villages where
she went to collect seeds. 

Kamalaji
began storing the collected seeds at her house or sowing them on small patches
of her family&#39;s two-acre land. Over time, she began storing them at a seed bank in
Patraput set up in 2001 by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation’s (MSSRF) branch in Jeypore, around 13 kilometres from her hamlet.

In most
families in neighbouring villages, “only two varieties [machhakanta
and haladichudi ] are still being cultivated,” she says, when we meet in Patraput, a 119-household hamlet three
kilometres from Kanjeipatraput
village in the Dongorchinchi
panchayat of Jeypore block. Of the village’s population of 966 (including
the hamlet’s households), 381
belong to Scheduled Tribes.

In much of Kamalaji’s
own two-acre field too, now cultivated mainly by her son Tankadhar, who is around
35, except for machhakanta
and haladichudi on small patches, the family no longer grows traditional landraces. Tankadhar says they gradually shifted
from local varieties to high-yielding hybrids over a decade ago.

“Our income depends
on how much we produce,” he says. “The yield from one or two traditional
varieties goes up to 6-10 quintals. It is much less than what we get from
high-yielding varieties [15-18 quintals]. How do I
care for my family if the production is less? Besides, it is easier to sell one
variety instead of many.&quot;   

Still, alongside her own family’s compulsions,
Kamalaji continued her seed preservation work, for which she has received awards. In 2002, she collected the &#39;Equator
Initiative&#39; award on behalf of the Adivasi communities of Jeypore. in Johannesburg. In
2009-10, on behalf of the Panchabati
Gramya Unayana Samiti, (a rural development society set up in 2003 with
help from MSSRF, of which Kamalaji was the vice president in the past), she received
the ‘Plant Genome Savior Community Award’ set up by the Protection of Plant
Varieties &amp; Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPVFRA).

This award is given annually on the basis of applications
received from farmers or community-based organisations for an established record
for conserving plant agro-biodiversity. The
PPVFRA is a government of India entity, set up under the Department of
Agriculture in November 2005 to implement the PPVFRA Act of 2001. The Authority grants rights to
breeders and farmers who have preserved, bred, evolved or developed landraces.

But neither the
Padma Shri nor the PPVFRA award have helped Kamalaji in getting rights over the
seeds she once cultivated and is now conserving. She did not even know of
the PPVFRA and that she could claim rights. The rights over kalajira, for example, are with Jogendra Sahu
from Harichandrapur, Odisha,
since October 8, 2013 (and will remain with him till October 7, 2028). Jogendra’s application for
rights on kalajira was advertised in June 2013 in the Plant Variety
Journal of India. The Act says Kamalaji or any other farmer or
community, who think they have rights, should have filed an opposition to the
claim within three months.

But Kamalaji does not read
the journal. In fact, many farmers do not know of the PPVFRA or that
they can claim rights to seeds they have been using for years. This means
registration goes to whoever files a claim first. So Jogendra alone will enjoy
the benefits of kalajira,
if the variety makes commercial gains, for the next 9 years, at least. Till May 2019 the PPVFRA has issued
certificates on 3,538 varieties – of which 1,595 are farmers’ varieties. The
others are with private seed companies, research universities or individual
commercial breeders.

Farm
activists though point out that no
individual farmer or community should have rights unless they have bred a new variety. “Seed thrives only if it is used in the
fields consistently, season after season, and not otherwise [ by methods like rights and certification],” says Kamalaji.

Meanwhile,
in the absence of robust cultivation, many varieties are vanishing. Chandramma
Masia, 55, another Bhumia Adivasi farmer from Nuaguda hamlet of Limma village in Kundura block, around 35
kilometres from Kanjeipatraput, says her family too switched to an
‘improved’ variety from desi dhan (traditional varieties). “We got around
18-20 quintals [from this ‘improved’ variety]. Seeing the yield going up,
farmers from other villages have been approaching me for seeds,” she says. Chandramma
cultivates a 100-day upland landrace called pandkagura in half an acre only for her
family’s consumption. 

Similarly,
40-year-old Rukmani Khillo, an Adivasi farmer from the Paroja community,
cultivates muktabali
on half acre and machhakanta
on two acres. “These can be harvested within 90 to 100 days from sowing day [as
compared to 120-140 days for longer duration varieties], and there is a good
demand for these short-duration varieties among farmers, locally,“ says,
Rukmani, who is from Jholaguda
hamlet of Limma village.

And
Kamalaji’ daughter, 42-year-old Raimati Ghiuria, cultivates just landraces on
her family&#39;s six acres in Nuaguda, a
hamlet around 35 kilometres from Patraput.. This year she has cultivated
kalajira, machhakanta,
haladichudi, gothia, dangar and bodikaburi.
“Of the six acres, produce from two acres is enough for our family of 10. We
sell the rest [to local farmers]. All these are short duration varieties,” says
Raimati. 

The
short-duration varieties sell locally because they are central to an Adivasi festival, Nuakhai, celebrated for a few days around September-October. “We have our first
meal of the year cooked from grain harvested that year, after submitting
the food to our village goddess, Gaon Budhi Thakurani. That day, we do not eat
machine-processed grain but eat hand-ground grain,” says Damu Paroja, 38, who
belongs to Paroja
Adivasi community and is from
Kundura village in Kundura block.

All the other indigenous
varieties are stored in seed banks – there are three community-run banks in
Patraput, Nuaguda and Jholaguda villages (set up by MSSRF). “We have 94 paddy and 16 ragi varieties in the Nuaguda seed bank.
Every year, all these are planted in a conservation plot. This year we have
gathered more varieties from different places and increased the paddy number to
over 110,” says Budra Pradhan, 25, a community resource person in
the state government’s Odisha Millets Mission. 

“In agriculture,
seed has to be sown, grown, collected, stored, distributed. Of all the
activities, I like distributing seeds to people. Even if I lose what I have,
they will be safe with someone else,” says Kamalaji.  “The government’s support will take us a long
way in protecting our seeds. I request their support in preserving the
landraces for our future.”  

Her son Tankadhar adds, “From next year, I&#39;m
switching to local varieties. Many people who come to visit my mother have been
asking: how can you cultivate sarkari dhan when
your mother got award for conserving landraces.&quot;  

For their help with inputs and translation, the author acknowledges Susanta Sekhar Choudhury and
Thrinath Taraputia of WASSAN, Koraput, Odisha, and Pratap Chandra Jena and
Prashant Kumar Parida of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Koraput,
Odisha.

Patraput's saviour of indigenous seeds

পত্রপুটের দেশজ বীজের রক্ষক

உள்ளூர் விதைகளின் பட்ராபுட் காவலர்

পাত্ৰপুতৰ থলুৱা বীজৰ ৰক্ষক

پاترپُٹ میں دیشی بیجوں کے محافظ

पात्रपुट में देसी बीजों के संरक्षक

स्थानिक वाणांची रक्षणकर्ती पात्रपुटची कमला

ପାତ୍ରପୁଟର ଦେଶୀ ବିହନର ସଂରକ୍ଷକ

Patraput

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Patraput's saviour of indigenous seeds

Earlier this year, Kamala Pujhari of Odisha's Koraput district received the Padma Shri for her work on seed conservation – an uphill task when many varieties of paddy in her village have vanished

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